


It Takes a Second to Say Goodbye

by ninchannie



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Childbirth, Childhood Friends, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Family, Finding each other again, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Healing, Hurt, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Recovery, Sad with a Happy Ending, Soldier johnny, Suicidal Thoughts, Surviving together, Therapy, Trauma, War, Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23053288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninchannie/pseuds/ninchannie
Summary: Soldiers don’t cry. Not on the battlefield when they shoot down enemy after enemy. Not during the funerals of their brothers who lost their life fighting. Not even in therapy when they are going over the trauma again and again and again. Soldiers don’t cry.In this moment, pleading at Jaehyun’s feet, Johnny is not a soldier anymore.OrJaehyun loses Johnny when the war starts and with him goes his will to live.Years later they meet again, minds and bodies torn from what they have seen and survived.Even after all this time, they still feel the same. Three unsaid words finally spoken into existence.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 21
Kudos: 129





	It Takes a Second to Say Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> This is a different one for me, sfw and just very emotional and sad, but everything turns out well in the end. 
> 
> Keep in mind this is a war au, so there will be mentions of violence, death, war crimes, rape and the trauma resulting in surviving a war. There are mentions of suicidal thoughts and referenced eating disorders, childbirth and helping with it.
> 
> Please don't read if any of these things trigger you!

It had been severely unfortunate timing for the war to start. Not that there ever _is_ a good time for it, Jaehyun just wishes it could’ve waited a day longer. Johnny and he had a plan for goodness sake, carefully tinkered over for months and all they would’ve needed were a few hours more.

They had planned a life away from civilisation, already having found the perfect forest refuge in the mountains for them to live in, until whatever disgusting bomb would come and erase all of humanity.

Everyone was expecting the war to begin sometime that summer, political tension having grown to completely new heights over the course of six months, but of course nobody knew exactly when the governments would snap and start attacking.

The first sirens blared, when Johnny was out to buy hunting nets, the last thing missing from their list of items needed before running away to the woods. Jaehyun was at their small apartment at the time, but the second he heard the sirens he left. He ran past his neighbours trying to pull him down into the bunker under their complex, out and to the direction of the nearby store where he knew Johnny would be.

The streets were pure chaos, cars left randomly on the asphalt to get into the closest house, people running and crowding into the stairways to the bunkers. Jaehyun was just running around the corner of the street to the store, when he saw a group of soldiers barricading the strip, parting the street into two sides.

They were in uniforms, machine guns thrown over their shoulders and a flag of stars and stripes proudly displayed on their chests. It seemed peaceful enough, no one attacking, not yet anyway, just trying to separate the street into two sides. There were a few random citizens on either side of the man-made wall and with a sinking heart Jaehyun realized he was cut off from getting to the store.

Johnny was on the other side, making his way to the barricade of soldiers as soon as he saw his friend, frantically searching for him. He screamed Jaehyun’s name but the sirens still blaring over the city made it nearly impossible for the other to hear. With each second that Jaehyun couldn’t find Johnny under the people on the other side, more panic flared up in his gut, the sight of foreign soldiers carrying heavy armour making him just want to turn around and run.

When the two finally made eye contact, Jaehyun swallowed all of his instincts down and ran towards the other, not caring about the strong arms of the soldiers holding him back when he reached their barricade. They shoved him back, making him tumble to the ground but his own panic picked him up again, to try and push through again, no matter how impossible it seemed.

The soldiers screamed in a mixture of English, Japanese and Korean, making Jaehyun’s head swim as he tried to pick apart the sentences. Something about a transport and getting the _American gooks_ to the base. He knew what it meant, deep in his heart he knew, so he tried to collect his thoughts in hopes that he could stop it.

"I need to get to my friend.” Jaehyun said, his accent nearly not audible, and the soldier in front of him stopped at that, probably surprised at being directly addressed and in English of all things.

"Where are you from, kid." he said sternly, looking Jaehyun up and down in a way of taking in his body, if he would be any help in the military. Jaehyun knew, as soon as he would reveal his nationality, the _kid_ would rot from the soldier’s lips. Pure white anger mixed with the horrible abyss of fear made him speak up anyway.

"I'm Korean." Jaehyun said, looking at Johnny over the soldier’s shoulder, begging with silent eyes for him to run, to flee, to save himself. He was so close, if it wasn’t for the soldier between them, maybe he could’ve even touched his friend. Johnny just shook his head, motioning to a blue and red piece of clothing wrapped around his upper arm. They had already found out about him being an American citizen.

The noise stopped at once and Jaehyun could only hear his heartbeat reverberate through his whole being.

"Then fuck off gook. This is war." Jaehyun registered the words, somewhere in the back of his mind, but he didn’t run, he didn’t speak. He just stood there and kept looking over the soldier’s shoulder, where Johnny was steadily shaking his head at him, tears streaming down his face.

"Jae!“, Johnny had to scream his lungs out to reach him. "Don’t get killed here, you still have a chance.", _To_ _hide_. "Go!”

As soon as the soldiers realized Johnny was screaming at the other, they pulled him away and before Jaehyun could even think, Johnny was drowned in a crowd of civilians and soldiers, taken for a future of killing in a war that wasn’t theirs.

A scream of three words died in Jaehyun’s throat.

-

Three years later, the war has taken a different route than anyone could’ve expected, with a peace treaty being formed to forbid the use of weapons designed for mass destruction and new governments being elected, to form states over the continents that weren't completely destroyed.

One fifth of the earth's population was killed in the wake of the war, roughly 1.6 billion people dead, a vast majority being mere civilians. Unlike any previous world wars, western Europe and central America have taken most of the damage, complete countries destroyed by nukes and made uninhabitable for centuries to come.

Jaehyun only knows that, from the small radio he stole in the beginning weeks of the war, now still mumbling in the corner of the small shack he and five other refugees have taken live in. There had been times when no radio waves were able to be picked up, but for a few months now, the connection had been relatively stable and with the radio being energized through a small solar panel, as most technology had been updated to in the months leading up to the war, they were able to stay as up to date as possible.

He stole it a few weeks after Johnny had been taken, when he was wandering north from where the two had planned on going, a bit further into the mountains to get as far away from civilization as possible.

Give or take five more months of Jaehyun stumbling through forests and over deserted hiking trails, months of pure loneliness save for the sound of radio noise, barely surviving on creek water and roots, he found his current companions, now all crying from happiness at the message of the war being over.

When he accidentally stumbled over three boys in military equipment, Jaehyun thought his life was over, but as it turned out, the three of them seemed to think the same. After clearing up the misunderstanding, guns and knives held up between them, he found out that Mark, Donghyuck and Taeil had been fleeing the troops as well, not wanting to enrol in the military, just like Jaehyun. Mark revealed himself as being of Canadian citizenship and it took weeks for Jaehyun to be able to look and talk to him normally, the memories of Johnny still too fresh in his head. This could've been him after all, if they just would’ve fled sooner. His grudge soon turned to admiration, because despite being younger, Mark made for a great leader of their hopeless group.

About a month and a half later, they stumbled over the abandoned shack and made it their home. It was nothing more than a storage space for wood, but it was close to a creek and had a roof, so they were able to get water and stay safe from the rain, enough for desperate war refugees.

One afternoon, they found traces of blood on the stones next to the creek and followed the trace, in hopes of a wounded animal making for easy prey. Instead, they found a woman, unconscious and slowly bleeding to death.

She barely survived, the only reason being Jaehyun’s knowledge of herbal plants, from being a scout as an early teen. The woman, Soo-ah, had been raped by a soldier, stabbed in the stomach after, but she got away and somehow made it through the woods for three whole days, in and out of consciousness, solely surviving on bugs and rainwater. Thankfully, she forgot most of it, a fortunate memory loss due to the trauma, but all the wounds where ripped open again when her period didn’t come, and her stomach grew bigger and bigger.

Soo-ah begged Jaehyun to kill her one night, away from the three boys sleeping in the shack. She was crying, pleading to him that she can’t possibly live with her rapist’s child. That she could never birth a baby into a war-torn world, only waiting for certain death. Jaehyun listened and sobbed with her, readily pushing his knife against her throat, because who was he to deny a traumatized woman’s wish. His head was dizzy from crying so much, when Mark stumbled through the bushes, right before Jaehyun was ready to kill her. He didn’t try to stop him.

" _Eomma_ ,”, the younger began as he fell to his knees at their side, quickly crying with them. Hyuck and Mark had both soon begun to call her that, something in their situation making it easy to spin familiar bonds. “Eomma, I know it is hard. I know you want to die. I want to die too.”

At that point Jaehyun had stopped crying, a dangerous numbness pushing over his being. Hyuck and Taeil were sleeping, he could kill Mark and Soo-ah without them knowing and then strangle the other two in their dreams. He could drown himself in the creek right after. Because what is it worth living in a world that is so broken, that a woman has to ask for death after being raped by a war criminal? Has to ask for death at the hands of her friends?

It only lasted a second, before Jaehyun felt like he had to throw up, the thought of taking the lives of four of his most loved friends, his family, too much to even bare. The world was being wrecked by a war, but these five, they had made a small life of their own in a shack in the mountains and maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s enough to stay alive for.

“Eomma, just know that you have been the best mother to all of us. If someone can do this, it's you." Mark’s voice was torn from sobbing, but Soo-ah heard it all, felt it deep in her heart when both boys came to her side and cried with her in the moonlight.

They never told Donghyuck or Taeil.

In the end, the five of them pulled through. Nearly all food they could find was given to Soo-Ah, so she would be healthy enough for the baby to survive, and for herself to be able to give birth.

Both lived. Jaehyun helped Soo-ah through it all, the only one at her side during the delivery and it was without a question the most horrifying thing he ever had to do. One that would make him wake up from nightmares for years to come.

Soo-ah screamed for death again, during the birth, her body ripping apart and there was nothing Jaehyun could do, no pain killing herb strong enough to help her in any way. Neither of them understood how she survived it, or how she didn’t get infections afterwards, when Jaehyun stitched her up with the threads of Mark’s old shirt.

With her, survived a tiny girl.

Hyuck immediately made himself her personal protector and together, all of them raised her to be a quirky two-year-old, now crying in her mother's arms alongside her four brothers. Danbi, the name chosen because she was born on a rainy day, isn’t much of a crier, but with her family exploding with emotions around her, she seems to chime right in.

What starts as cries of happiness and relief quickly turns to weeping sobs of sorrow, now unhinderedly crushing down on them. They tumble into a messy pile on the floor, Soo-ah in the middle with Danbi in her arms, four bodies strung tightly around her to hold them together, as a group and as individuals.

For the five, there had never been a question of what would come after the war, all of them sure that it would end in some kind of earthshattering bomb killing most humans, so they lived each day as their last, wondering how much taller they would be able to see Danbi grow, how often they will go out to hunt or get wood.

Now, that the possibility of the war being over actually came true, it is too much to even begin to fathom.

All of them had left their families behind, their friends and homes and now they would need to face the reality of their relatives being deceased, their homes destroyed. Then again, South Korea isn’t even South Korea anymore, the US no more the US, how would they even begin to come back to a broken society, especially as people who have fled from being enlisted in the military before the war?

They cry for hours, painfully grasping each other until one after the other slowly falls asleep, unconscious from their emotions running them over. As always, Jaehyun awakens from a nightmare, this time not monsters or bombs ripping apart his friends, not skin tearing and blood pouring with the cries of a baby drowning out all noise, just a person standing in a fast field, bombs dropping around him.

_Johnny._

Jaehyun often wishes he could forget his friend, his whole family from before the war. He thinks it would be easier that way, when he wouldn’t need to think about where Johnny is right now, what the army is making him do. That he will never see the other again. That he is most likely dead.

All of these worries have long overtaken his memories of a happy time, filled with laughter and games, late-night takeout and horrible dramas, clubs with the music too loud to talk. A time where he thought he had a future with Johnny, that someday they would be more. Jaehyun only truly realized that he loved him, when he was being ripped from his life forever. Hell, he still loves Johnny, despite desperately wanting to forget him.

Normally, he would settle back and try to find more sleep, maybe pull Danbi into his arms and act like he sings to her when in reality he does so to calm himself. But this night he feels restless and the shack feels like it’s slowly shrinking, suffocating him and drowning him in his thoughts.

That’s why Jaehyun silently stands up and steps out of the door, making way for the creek since his throat feels ripped open from crying. He doesn’t notice that Mark is there too, sitting at the very edge of a stone and looking over the water glistening in the moonlight. Only after he already devoured gulp after gulp of the cold water does he hear the light hums of his friend and walks over, sitting next to him on the stone.

They just sit there and stare at the water for a long while, both lost in their thoughts but being calmed by someone else by their side. Mark slides closer after a while, lifting Jaehyun’s arm and settling under it, his head against the others heart as he listens to its song. Personal space gets irrelevant after a while of living in a tiny room with no shower or toilet available, so Jaehyun accepts the sudden touch and wraps his arm tighter around Mark’s shoulders.

He is thin, all skin and bones just like the rest of them and Jaehyun can feel it under his fingertips, tries to imagine Mark all big and full of muscles like he would be if the military would’ve taken him. Jaehyun can’t picture it.

“What do we do now?”, Mark whispers after another eternity of silence, the sun slowly creeping up on the horizon. “Stay here?”

“We can’t very well go anywhere else, we ran away from being enlisted.” Jaehyun knows that in a perfect world, they could just search for the nearest city and find a new life, but in their world, he doubts the military would let them live down from fleeing the service.

“What about Danbi? She never even met another child, she needs education and Soo-ah… Eomma needs to be treated by a doctor, she still has these flashbacks, she still wants to die, she-“

“You think things like schools and therapy still exist in our world?”, Jaehyun stops Mark’s rambling, lightly pushing him up with his shoulder to look at the younger’s face. “You think we can just go back like nothing happened?”

“I…”, Mark begins, but lets the sentence die in his throat. “I don’t even know how the world works anymore, Jaehyun. I don’t know how we used to eat food with chopsticks, how it feels to be _full_ after eating. How it feels to step into a house and be able to turn the lights on, to shower with warm water, to use a phone, I-I… I feel like it’s all so far away, maybe I just made these things up in my head.”

There is nothing Jaehyun can say to Mark, not when he just perfectly put into words how he is feeling, how all of them must be feeling. Mark is crying again, tears quietly leaving his eyes and Jaehyun wipes them away with his thumbs, cradles the other’s face in his hands.

It feels nearly instinctive to bend forward and press his forehead against Mark’s, as if with their heads touching there comes a connection like no other, like they can feel everything the other is thinking. There is no such thing, of course not, but with his head pressed against Mark’s, Jaehyun feels like things might be able to be okay again. Like all of them might be able to heal.

-

They leave after a few more days, carefully packing up their few belongings. It feels bittersweet to leave the shack behind, the house where so many things happened, where a new _life_ was born. All of them are certain that they will never come back. They found the shack by pure coincidence and doubt that once they find civilization again, they will be able to ever find it again.

With a last gaze, they finally turn away and follow the creek downstream.

With summer coming up quickly, the air feels heavy on their skin and it doesn’t take long for them to have a layer of sweat clinging to them. The four boys each have a backpack and Soo-Ah has a shirt wrapped around her torso, wrapping Danbi to her back. She is cooing and aweing at the wildlife, birds in the trees and colourful flowers on the ground.

It helps to pass the time, teaching her little words and singing songs for the toddler to make her fall asleep when she gets tired close before sundown. It’s around that time, that the group stumbles over a hiking trail, overgrown with plants, but at least a small sign of civilization.

They had all agreed to only pause for a few hours at a time, so when they stumble over a huge tree on the side of the hiking trail, they decide to take a break. Soo-Ah falls asleep immediately, Danbi cradled in her arms as the other’s take turns in guarding their small camp. When the sun creeps up over the mountains, Jaehyun wakes up everyone else and they move forward, glad that the walking is a lot easier in the early hours of day than in the full sun.

He ignores the worried glances Mark is sending him, knowing well that Jaehyun didn’t even sleep a minute that night.

On their way, Taeil turns on the radio every so often, but they get nothing but white noise, no indication of what day it is or what is happening in the world. Jaehyun guesses it must be around eight thirty in the morning, when they hear a helicopter fly over them, heading west, so they decide to ditch the trail and make their way through the vegetation, in hopes of finding something in the direction of the aircraft.

Surely enough, after about an hour, the forest opens up to a huge cropless field, the helicopter from earlier standing right at the other end of it. The sun is shining down harshly when the group makes their way over the scorched ground, all of them soon feeling lightheaded from dehydration, making every step painful and torturous.

At some point, Jaehyun thinks he can see figures on the horizon, people walking around the helicopter and carrying things, but he isn’t sure if maybe his imagination is just playing tricks on him, from the scorching sun burning down on their heads.

When they get even closer, it is Danbi who alerts them of their group, waking up from where she had fallen asleep on her mother’s back and crying from hunger and thirst. All too naturally, Jaehyun clutches his knife in his hand when three men and two women come running to them, all wearing camouflaged uniforms but no weapons.

There aren’t any flags displayed on their chests.

“Five adults and a child. They look to be dehydrated and undernourished, doctor needed. Over.” One of the women speaks into a radio set in broken English before approaching. “Do you speak Korean?” She asks then, halting a few feet away from the group and raising her hands when she realizes Jaehyun is holding a weapon.

“We speak Korean.”, he says, protectively stepping in front of his friends, as if he could do something if these soldiers were to attack. “Which nation do you belong to?”

“There are no nations anymore. The war is over.” One of the men says, this time in broken Korean.

Before Jaehyun can speak up again, Mark is by his side. “You’re wearing uniforms.” He simply says.

“We’re with the UW, picking up supplies and other refugees. We don’t fight.” The woman says again, lowering he arms when Jaehyun pockets his knife, trusting her words.

“UW?” Mark asks, stepping closer to Jaehyun to ground himself, taking his hand. This is the first time in two and a half years since he has seen a person outside of their little family, it feels strange and scary.

“It’s the United World organisation, we’re active all over the world to peacefully rebuild societies. It was founded with the peace treaties, independently from countries or governments.” She explains.

Jaehyun has questions, lots of questions and for some reason a bitter taste has come to the back of his throat as he feels himself getting angry. Before he can act on it, Danbi stops the conversation altogether by beginning to cry again.

“We can’t force you to come with us, but we have a refugee centre near Daegu with food, doctors and showers. Please let us help you.”

-

Jaehyun, Mark, Donghyuck and Taeil put up a fight to not be taken away from Soo-ah and Danbi, who are supposed to go into a separate women’s centre. That’s why in the end they all are left with the helpers from the UW, sharing one room with two beds. _Beds_. It feels like a forbidden luxury to sit on a soft mattress, freshly showered with bottled water at your side.

Soo-ah and Danbi had been taken to a gynaecologist, who nearly had a heart attack upon seeing Jaehyun’s scarred try to stitch her up after the birth, and a specialist for child-trauma. All of them have undergone a diagnosis and got a few shots and other basic medication.

The gist of it is, that all of them are severely underfed, which has taken a toll on their hearts, teeth, bones, muscles and just about everything, so that they need to very carefully be fed back to a normal weight.

The first time Jaehyun has kimchi at the centre, he throws up.

It takes weeks for them to slowly heal, physically and mentally. They have group therapy sessions, working up everything that happened from the beginning of the war and after each session they have to hold each other together in their room, crying and overwhelmed from emotion.

Some days, Jaehyun sees his therapist alone too, just screaming out his thoughts, how ridiculous it is that there even is _therapy_ in a world with millions dead, with atomic mist making its way into the atmosphere and killing even more with its deadly rain.

Suddenly, Danbi’s name isn’t an homage to hope anymore. It’s a reminder that death is still very much around the corner, just hidden with medication and doctors playing _united world._

She is in the therapy sessions too, Danbi, but she also has special ones, with other children she quickly makes friends with. Seeing her laugh and play with them, talking more and more everyday and calling Jaehyun and his brothers _appa_ is one of the few things actually giving him hope.

Sometimes even that isn’t enough, however.

One therapy session, Jaehyun is asked what he wants to do now, and he thinks about it hard, tries to find a reason to live for that is more than surviving, but he can’t find it. Maybe he should’ve killed himself that night with Soo-ah and Mark under the moonlight. He doesn’t say anything about it to the doctor.

“What about your friend, Jaehyun. Don’t you want to try and find him?” Soo-ah chimes in, surely not meaning anything bad by it, but Jaehyun feels like throwing up once more, just like after his meals every single day.

“A friend?” The doctor asks as he turns from Jaehyun to Soo-ah, expecting more of an answer from her than from him.

“I had a friend before the war. He was my only family.”, he surprises the doctor as he speaks. Jaehyun knows he is going to be sick after the session. “Johnny.”

-

With many words from his friends and the doctor, Jaehyun finds himself in the newly opened IT-station in an old office building that wasn’t destroyed in the war, Mark by his side for emotional support.

The reparations are coming along slowly, most refugees helping in picking through ruins and checking houses for their ability to house people again. Their group was relocated into one of them, close to a newly founded kindergarten for Danbi. It feels surreal to have three rooms, to only share the space with one person in comparison to five. They even have a small kitchen space where they can cook their assigned food rations. The bathroom feels luxurious too, despite being shared with three other refugee families, they have a shower, a toilet and even a bathtub, which has soon become one of Danbi’s favourite things in the world.

Hyuck and Taeil have even been assigned shifts in different facilities, at a school and in a sorting factory for goods being found in the ruins. Jaehyun envies them, wishes he could have a pastime to spend the days with instead of being left with his thoughts. But he and Mark are still too weak, is what the doctors say, their bodies not accepting most foods so they will have to wait a bit longer.

That’s also one of the reasons that made Jaehyun come here, to try and calm his mind by finding out about his family. About Johnny.

Most of them have been here before, all refugees allowed to search the databases of casualties for any relatives or friends. To see if they have come up in any of the other refugee camps. It is a sobering thing, to search for the names of people that feel like they were left behind in a different life. It is less sobering to find the names as not-found, still thousands of people missing and most certainly dead by this point.

That’s the result most of them had, save for Soo-ah’s sister being housed in the Seoul refugee camp and Taeil’s parents coming up as deceased. They all needed an extra therapy session after going to the IT-station.

Jaehyun is the last of them to go there, his family already left behind years before the war and the name of the only friend he cares about too heavy in his heart. It feels utterly wrong to sit in front of a monitor and type out the letters, like he completely forgot the layout of a keyboard and how to write smoothly.

With each letter, Jaehyun’s heart stings as the name comes with floods of memories overpowering him. He is certain that Johnny can’t possibly be alive, that the dreadful word _deceased_ will blink up at him and break his world even more, just like it did to Taeil.

It is Mark’s hand coming up to rest on Jaehyun’s shoulder, warm and soothing, that finally makes him brave enough to press the _search databases_ option on the screen. The loading screen takes what feels like years, reminiscent of the computers Jaehyun had seen in museums when he was a child, the screen pixelated and blinking uncomfortably.

There are surprisingly more _John Jun Suh’s_ than Jaehyun expected and his heart nearly drops when he reads the first one as _deceased_. The estimated date of birth however, makes him realize that this can’t be his Johnny. So, he tries to only concentrate on the left column, completely ignoring the results of the search and just trying to find a clue to _his_ Johnny.

_John Jun Suh. Born 9 th February 1995, Chicago, former USA. Corporal, former United States Army._

It’s the most information any of the John’s had, spot on fitting _Johnny_ , the date and place of birth, that he is a soldier in the army. For a second Jaehyun forgets that he still needs to find out about his status, that just because he found his best friend doesn’t mean he is alive.

When he looks over after only a moment, what he finds is more shocking than _deceased_ or _not found_. Something he knows means that there is no way of him finding his friend, even if he is still alive. That their governmentless society is already back on its fucked-up tracks of holding back information from its citizens.

_Classified information_.

-

It comes as a thrilling shock when Johnny gets a heads-up from one of the UW-workers at their base, that a _Mark Lee_ has requested his status and position. He doesn’t know a person with that name, doesn’t possibly remember a comrade he fought with or a friend from before the war that was named Mark. He nearly denies the request until the man working for the UW tells him there was a message attached to it.

_Don’t you want to see Jaehyun._

The shock of reading the name comes in a trembling panic attack wrecking his body, the UW-worker quickly shooting a sedative into his veins.

Johnny wakes up with a therapist by his side, asking him to go over what triggered the attack. He has to stand up at some point during his explanation, pacing through the small room as far as the infusion in his arms allows it.

“What do you want to do now that you know he is still alive?” She asks when he finishes, and it makes him stop in his tracks.

“I need to find him.” Johnny says, voice strong in stark contrast to his trembling hands and pale face.

“You can’t, you’re not stable enough.”

The words sting, like a disgusting itch crawling under his skin, because deep in his heart Johnny knows it’s the truth, the terrors of war still clinging to him every single second of the day. He can’t sleep without drugs, can’t talk to people that look a certain way or speak certain languages. He faints at the sight of a gun, his brain shutting down from his trauma. He knows he’s not stable enough, but Jaehyun has been the only flash of light in those last years of horror and now Johnny knows he is alive, how is he supposed to stay perched at the base and not act on it?

He tried finding Jaehyun with the databases in the Busan IT-centre, of course he had, but there has never come up a result for the name. Neither for _Jeong Jaehyun_ , nor for _Jeong Yoonoh_ , so Johnny just assumed the worst, especially after finding out that the mountain they originally planned to flee to had been hit by a shower of bombs.

The doctor’s words cling to him, making _getting stable_ his new aim, to finally get out of the base used as a rehabilitation centre. So, Johnny does yoga, learns to draw and writes poems, nonviolent approaches to healing, that are being acknowledged at the base. There are ex-soldiers with him, some doing the same and others spiralling in and out of saneness, glorifying the war and laughing at his efforts.

Johnny uses the database again too, searching up this _Mark Lee_ and finding out that he lives in Daegu in a reclaimed house. In a spur of the moment, he looks up _Jaehyun Lee_ and surprisingly finds a Jaehyun that fits his friend perfectly, down to the birth date. The remaining five days before his scheduled release from the base, Johnny ponders about it, wonders what it means that Jaehyun changed his name, if he somehow married that Mark in the wake of the war.

His mind runs over that possibility in the transport too, Johnny sitting in the back of a truck with a few UW-workers and loads of supplies. The drive to Daegu is only supposed to take three hours, despite destroyed strips of land along the way, but Johnny tries his best not to look out of the windows, his old homeland looking barren and alien with craters destroying the landscape.

Instead Johnny meditates, getting praised from one of the workers and reminded that he is supposed to call back with the refugee-centre in Daegu sometime during that week. To be assigned a task. A normal not-killing task of searching the destroyed buildings or supplying the different institutions. It is beyond believable to think of.

Just like Jaehyun, Johnny never really expected to survive the war, always thought he would get shot or stabbed or bombed to pieces, but it only ever got close, never happened. Even in his wildest imaginations he never thought that he would have a _chance_ to see his best friend again. His only piece of family left.

It feels mind-numbingly overwhelming to step out of the transport in Daegu, close to the IT-station. Where Johnny’s base in Busan was completely closed off, trying to hold in any instable ex-soldiers on their way to recovery, Daegu was open and free, civilians walking around in the small centre of the city that was mostly unaffected during the war.

He only even sees two or three UW-workers amongst them, carrying supplies or going places and Johnny feels like he might lose it, like he might melt into a puddle of nerves on the street, because _war_ happened. War raged and he survived, just like all of these people now building a new world.

With shaking legs, Johnny continues down to the building he had been described as the IT-station, quickly finding it at the centre of attention in the busy streets. There is a decent amount of people queuing up in front of a small desk and Johnny grows frantic quickly, feeling like with each passing second, Jaehyun slips further from his grasp.

“Water? You look stressed.” A voice suddenly chimes from the side and Johnny takes in a scrawny boy, holding out a bottle to him. The words go right through his brain when he reads the name on a makeshift paper name-tag on the boy’s chest.

_Mark Lee_.

“Uhm, sir?”, Mark asks again, this time in English, seemingly oblivious to Johnny nearly fainting over his name. “Do you want water?”

“Mark Lee.” Johnny’s voice is frantic, the name stumbling over his lips in barely a moment. “You’re Mark Lee?”

“ _Yes_?”, Mark takes a step, slightly intimidated by the mountain of human seemingly recognizing him. “Should I know you?”

“N-no, I’m John Suh. You contacted me.” Johnny can’t believe it, that this tiny man knows his Jaehyun, shares his last name with him.

“You’re Johnny? Oh my gosh, my request was a complete shot in the dark, I never thought you would even get it.”, Mark’s voice is now equally shaky as Johnny is pulled out of the queue and to the side. He is placing the bottle to the side before yelling that he’s leaving for his break at no one in particular. “Let’s go!”

With that, Johnny is pulled out of the building and led through a maze of small alleys and streets, catching glimpses of the reminders of destruction on some of the buildings. He tries to keep up, but Mark is nearly running, and Johnny doesn’t even know where he is leading him, so he just tries to stay right behind him.

They jog for a few more minutes until Mark finally slows down to catch his breath. Johnny isn’t as much exhausted by the activity, but by the plethora of new surroundings and promise of seeing his Jaehyun again. Mark however seems to be close to fainting, his head beet-red as he completely comes to a stop. Johnny uses the opportunity to finally ask a few of the questions burning in his mind.

“So, where are you going? And how do you know Jaehyun?”, Johnny brabbles and Mark is still trying to calm his heart, so he adds another question after a few seconds. “Why did _you_ contact me?”

“Jaehyun and I met during the war and we hid together in the mountains.”, Mark begins when he feels like he can stand normally again. “Our whole family still lives together, so I’m taking you to our place… and why me? After we found your information as classified, Jaehyun was sure he would never be able to find you, so he gave up on it. I just couldn’t stand him crying your name in his sleep anymore, so I took it on myself to try and find you.”

It’s too much information at once, too many little things to ask about, but Mark is already starting to walk again when Johnny even catches up with everything. Jaehyun wasn’t alone during war, he had Mark and seemingly other people as well to help him through it. The thought is a relief to Johnny, pure loneliness probably a worse killer than any weapon could be.

“Family?”, Is what his minds gets stuck on as he walks after Mark now, this time a lot slower and easier to keep up with. “Like you’re married?”

“What?”, Mark halts again for a second, just to look at Johnny confusedly. He can’t help but snicker when he begins to walk again. “More like siblings. We all decided to take on the same name when we came here, so now we officially count as a family.”

_Oh, well that makes a lot more sense_ , Johnny thinks to himself and he’s about to speak up when Mark comes to halt in front of a staircase leading up the outside of a building.

“Please be home, _please be home_ …”, Mark mumbles to himself before looking back at Johnny as he begins mounting the stairs. “It’s just up here.”

There are no words to describe the feeling of walking into the home of his best friend, that Johnny thought he lost years ago. To know that he is still alive and that he tried to find him too, that he must’ve thought of Johnny just as much as the other way around. It makes every step feel like years until Mark finally stops to unlock a door and step inside, not even caring to see if Johnny is following him.

Sounds don’t exist anymore, when Johnny finally steps inside, slowly taking in the scarce interior of the place, the woman cooking at a small stove, until his eyes land on Jaehyun.

He is sitting on the only piece of furniture, a sun-bleached orange couch, arms wrapped around a toddler in his lap as he raises her up and over his head, laughing when she shrieks from excitement. The second thing Johnny notices is how skinny Jaehyun looks, his arms so thin they might just break under the weight of a toddler. He is still the same beautiful Jaehyun from Johnny’s memories, the same gorgeous energy around him, just broken down from the experience of war.

Jaehyun is lost in his task and he throws Danbi up one, two more times, before noticing Mark has entered and is still standing at the exact same spot, the door not even closed behind him. There is a person in the shadows of the door, tall-grown and huge next to Mark and despite the years since the last time they saw each other, Jaehyun would recognize this face anywhere.

Danbi is scrambling around in his lap now too, arms reaching out for her other brother to pick her up but even she seems to notice the other man, her arms soon dropping as she cocks her head to the side. She studies Johnny for a few seconds before smiling brightly.

“Hello!” She yells, her voice bubbly from excitement and Johnny is woken up from his position, smiling back at the toddler and lifting his hand up when she waves at him.

“Hello, little one.” He says his voice low and shaking but Danbi understands either way and happily giggles when her mother picks her up from Jaehyun’s lap, turning to Mark with a confused face.

“Who is that?” She asks her stance protective and voice strong and Johnny feels reminded of his own mother when she used to scold him as a child.

“Johnny.” It’s Jaehyun who answers as he rises to his feet on shaking legs. Soo-ah looks between them for a few seconds until her whole expression softens.

“Well then, nice to meet you, Johnny.”, she says smiling widely at him as she passes Danbi to Mark. “I didn’t know we would have a guest so I cooked with only five people in mind, but since Jaehyun probably won’t get anything down, you can have his portion.”

“Eomma…” Mark mutters, trying to calm her in the already tense room.

“Thank you, but I don’t need-“ Johnny begins, feeling like a teenager again, getting scolded by his family. Soo-ah interrupts him with a hand motion.

“Yes, you do. I want to get to know the man who owns Jaehyun-ah’s heart.”, at the sudden reveal of his deepest feelings, Jaehyun nearly chokes on his spit, but Soo-ah is already back in the kitchen, tending to whatever is boiling in the pans and pots. “Now you two go talk.”

There is nothing Jaehyun can say with his heart beating out of his chest, numbing everything else. It feels just like that day he lost Johnny, a deja-vu of the situation, just that this time he finally gets him back. It must be a sick play of his brain, his imagination running wild in the desperation of his life.

It isn’t and he only really fathoms that when Johnny is next to him, his body warm and _real_ as Jaehyun leads him to his and Mark’s room, silently bidding Johnny inside and closing the door. They stand there awkwardly for a few seconds, just staring at each other until Johnny cracks, can’t possibly hold back any longer and pulls Jaehyun into his arms.

He embraces him, arms around a body of skin and bones, a mere memory of his Jaehyun. The younger is frozen in place for a few moments, not letting himself be cradled in a false sense of security until he can feel Johnny’s heartbeat. Can smell his scent of sweat and _Johnny_ fill his nostrils. Years of war lay between them, but he still smells like back then.

Finally, Jaehyun allows himself to relax into Johnny, to completely let himself be engulfed by his body, his presence, to try and grasp that his thoughts of never seeing Johnny again have been for naught, because he is here. Somehow, he found him in this broken world of theirs and is now there to hold Jaehyun together in his darkest times.

Jaehyun doesn’t realize tears have fallen until the fabric of Johnny’s shirt is wet under his face. Doesn’t realize that the other is trembling all around him too, whole body shaking.

As much as he wants to stay in this warmth forever, die in Johnny’s arms and leave their world behind together, Jaehyun detaches himself from his friend with a deep breath. He stays pressed against him with most of his body, just leans back to really take in Johnny’s face and wipe some of his own tears away with his fingers.

Johnny is still that same Johnny he grew up with. Still the same face and expressions, the same hair colour he had before beginning to dye it as a teen. It’s growing out, just like Jaehyun’s, in that awkward stage of too long to look good as a short hairstyle but too short to look good as a long one. Where his skin had been so smooth all of his life, a faint scar is now running over Johnny’s right cheek.

It’s completely mindblowing to suddenly be this close to the last person, the only person Jaehyun ever truly loved and Johnny is looking at him with those eyes that make it seem like he is the only person in the world. They might as well be, the chance of them meeting after being torn from another by different countries such a slight one, it feels close to unreal.

Just like Jaehyun is eyeing him, Johnny is tracing all of his friend’s features with a careful watch. Jaehyun might be skinny, his skin pale and face slim, but he has lost none of that ethereal beauty that always drew Johnny in. His eyes still sparkle with that small piece of mischief, just that there is a layer of new adulthood over it all.

When Johnny was ripped from Jaehyun’s life, he was only twenty, his friend mere eighteen years old and nearly four years of fleeing from war has aged him, of course, but Jaehyun still looks handsome and perfect to Johnny. Way more so, than his memories could’ve ever played him up to be.

“I can’t believe you’re here…”, Jaehyun’s voice is heavy with tears, shaking and low, but it’s the same voice Johnny hears in the early hours of morning when he can’t find any sleep. The voice of the person he loves more than anything in this world. “I thought I lost you forever.”

“Jae, I thought I lost you too. I’m sorry that I left you, I’m sorry that I couldn’t be by your side to protect you.”, Halfway through the sentence everything in Johnny breaks and tears finally fall free. His body buckles as he slowly slumps to the floor, finding a position on his knees, right at Jaehyun’s feet. “I’m so sorry, Jae, I’m sorry.”

Soldiers don’t cry. Not on the battlefield when they shoot down enemy after enemy. Not during the funerals of their brothers who lost their life fighting. Not even in therapy when they are going over the trauma again and again and again. Soldiers don’t cry.

In this moment, pleading at Jaehyun’s feet, Johnny is not a soldier anymore.

-

It was hard for Jaehyun to swallow the lump in his throat and pull Johnny to his feet. It was hard to see his friend feel guilty for something beyond his control, so Jaehyun told him repeatedly over hours and hours of them talking: _It’s not your fault_.

They didn’t talk about everything that happened to them, no words able to put the horrors into words that both of them had seen. There are no words needed, when you can feel everything in the way your best friend’s body shakes over a memory. When you can see the terror in his eyes.

Jaehyun learns that Johnny had been sent to America, to Argentina and then back to Korea during the war. That he had been active in combat and fought in more battles than most of his brothers. He learns that Johnny hates himself for it, that he can’t believe the things he did, that he killed and hurt people for a country he didn’t even call his home. That there is a brainwashed part of him that still repeats the mantras and hymns of war, not able to let go of the memories.

They both learn that the other wanted to die.

That both of them were close to really pull through, Jaehyun that night at the creek and Johnny on a base in Argentina, his gun already at his head. They also learn that it was a comrade, a friend, who saved them.

Even after hours of talking, until Soo-ah calls them for dinner, there are many things left unsaid that need to be talked about. Things that have Jaehyun’s skin crawl, like the fact that Johnny killed innocent civilians in the wake of the war. Like Johnny not understanding how Jaehyun doesn’t feel the urge to find Soo-ah’s rapist and kill him.

There are still things to be said, but they have time now. All the time in the world.

So, for now, they enjoy Soo-ah’s cooking and Danbi’s blabbering about her friends from kindergarten. Hyuck and Taeil were surprised at coming home to Johnny sitting on the floor next to the couch and feeding Danbi, but with a little help of Mark explaining, they quickly accepted him too, smiling happily at Jaehyun.

“I know that it can’t be, but she has your beautiful eyes, Jae.” Johnny says in the middle of trying to clean Danbi’s mouth with a napkin, leaving Jaehyun flustered and blushing at the compliment.

“We educated her eyes well, didn’t we?” Hyuck chimes in laughing, sneaking over to a struggling Johnny still trying to clean her face. With a wet finger he quickly wipes away the spilled stain.

They play with her some more, bickering and slowly opening up to each other and Jaehyun just watches from the couch, wonders how he never thought of how good Johnny would be with children. He looks a fairy-tale picture with Danbi, happy and glowing and it fills Jaehyun with a wave of pure sorrow of what they could’ve had if the world would’ve just been a little less cruel.

-

They are sitting on the roof of the small house, accessible over a small ladder, watching the new city born from ruins slowly die down to a light thrum of nothingness. It started as playing a few rounds of cards with Mark, who quickly yawned and excused himself to sleep on the couch, giving the two some space in his and Jaehyun’s room.

They talked some more for a long time, trying to remember their past together, how their flat had looked. What their favourite songs used to be. They talked about Johnny’s parents, still counting as missed in the databases, but Johnny says that he knows they are dead. That he felt an essential part of his life just gone close to the war’s end.

It makes Jaehyun wonder, if there really is such a connection, that you can feel it tear once a person dies. He wonders if that’s why his brain never let him forget about Johnny, because it could still feel him out there, fighting, breathing, _alive._

The conversation ceases to small trickles after a while, as they both lay on the roof and look up at the dark sky sprinkled with stars, so many stars, Jaehyun thinks more must’ve appeared in the years he forgot to look at the sky.

It’s a comfortable silence this time, one out of books and movies, were things have been said and you can just take comfort in the other’s presence. With their shoulders and sides touching, Jaehyun can feel Johnny’s breaths, can once more make sure that he is really there with him.

Jaehyun is still looking at the stars when Johnny’s eyes wander to him, taking in his features in the dim lights of the city. He has a sudden urge to run his fingers down the bridge of Jaehyun’s nose, to feel him breathe under his fingertips as he lightly traces over his lips.

Of course, his gaze doesn’t get unnoticed and soon Jaehyun turns to him, now both of them lying on their sides facing each other. Jaehyun is smiling like he is not just looking at Johnny, but at an angel sent straight from the heavens. For the younger, this feels like the truth, his friend having come to him at the perfect timing as his world posed to be drowned in dark thoughts. Just like years ago, Johnny is the only thing Jaehyun sees.

“I never told you this,”, he begins and his heart flutters dangerously when Johnny’s eyes flicker from Jaehyun’s own to his lips. “Remember the day it started? When I couldn’t reach you because of those soldiers?”

Johnny remembers. For months it had been the only thing keeping him sane as he was trained to fight, to obey and to kill. Only the faint pictures of Jaehyun at the other side of the barricade was what made him remember his _real_ self. The reason he should stay alive.

“Of course…” he whispers, everything else feeling too loud in the small bubble they created for themselves with the city silent underneath them.

Jaehyun swallows down the sudden knot in his throat when he thinks about his next words. “Right before that one soldier pulled you away, after you told me to get away, I…” Jaehyun bites his lips hard enough to draw blood, the thought of telling Johnny now and maybe even scaring him away too frightening.

“What is it, Jae? Please tell me.” There’s a hiccup in Johnny’s voice and for a second Jaehyun wonders if he already knows, if he can read his every thought.

“I wanted to tell you that I love you.”

The silence that follows makes Jaehyun’s chest feel tight in a way he never felt it before. As if his whole life will be decided by what response Johnny will give. He closes his eyes to blink away the feeling of tears filling them, only to be surprised by a sudden hand on his cheek, softly tracing his skin.

“Jae, do you…”, Johnny knows that his deepest desires could never come up with what it feels to have Jaehyun say the words. The words that he wishes he would’ve said years ago. “Do you still love me?”, he doesn’t give Jaehyun a chance to answer before speaking up again. “Because I love you.”

“Johnny, as if I could ever stop loving you.”, Jaehyun whispers after a few moments. “It was always you and it will be you for all eternity.”

It comes as a surprise, when Johnny shuffles a bit closer on the concrete of the roof, the air around him stuffy from the hot summer day and making Jaehyun’s stomach turn with a rush of feelings he nearly forgot he could feel. There used to be times when he wished to kiss Johnny, to touch him and have him in that way, but those were before the war, way before when everything was easier. It’s like in the four years of not having his Johnny, Jaehyun forgot these feelings, this incredible want, even existed.

With Johnny suddenly so close again, it’s as if all of these suppressed feelings come back all at once, making every single nerve in Jaehyun’s body feel like it is set ablaze with gasoline and blue flames. His hands are shaking when they land on Johnny, one on his chest, curling into the fabric of his shirt, and the other combing a few strands of dark hair out his face to settle on his neck.

Johnny reaches out more reluctantly, careful fingers trembling softly over Jaehyun’s skinny waist and on his bony arm. “Can I kiss you?” His voice is shaking too, and it surprises Jaehyun that Johnny even has to ask, but he is glad. Glad that his best friend who loves him back has the mind to ask after all this time.

“Please do.” He answers with a smile and gasps when Johnny’s fingers suddenly tighten on his waist, pulling Jaehyun closer with such ease it makes his heart beat even faster in his chest.

Contrary to the strength behind it, their lips meet softly, finding and slotting together carefully in the darkness. Jaehyun’s eyes flutter shut immediately, his whole body melting against Johnny’s as he tries to mirror his friend’s movements and slides his lips against him in a manner that he hopes feels endearing.

It feels rough, both of their lips dry and cracked from the summer air but in contrast to the shyness of the touch it feels right, just like it’s supposed to feel, especially when they slowly warm up to each other and soften through the slightest hint of spit and tongue. It’s really not like Jaehyun knows how it’s supposed to feel, not when the last kiss he had was in school. Maybe it is a bit clumsy and awkward here and there, but it feels right. Because it’s with Johnny, just like it was always supposed to be.

The thought comes quickly and makes Jaehyun’s movements stop, his lips halting against Johnny’s when a small whine leaves him. It wouldn’t be embarrassing, really, if Johnny would just keep going, but of course he has to move away then and giggle, the sound vibrating through Jaehyun due to their proximity.

“What?” He asks then, huffing and glad that Johnny isn’t able to see the blush on his face in the darkness of the night.

“You’re cute is all,” Johnny pecks him again and Jaehyun’s body betrays him with another high whine. “You were cute back then and after all of these years you still are,” the words make Jaehyun’s skin prickle and his heart hurt in a good way. Somehow he knows what Johnny will say next and he thinks just the same.

“I’ve waited my whole life for you and now you’re here. I’ve survived three years of war for this moment alone. I love you, Jae. I love you so much and I will make sure to spend every single waking second reminding you of it. I love you.”

“Johnny,” Jaehyun’s voice is raspy with tears, his heart beating so fast it is slowly making him feel lightheaded. He feels alive, and he hasn’t felt alive ever since the day he lost Johnny. Now, he is sure he will never let him go again. “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts through a comment <3
> 
> ~N


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